This glossy Abelia, Abelia Grandiflora, is
centered under the front porch, and does an excellent job of hiding the porch
foundation. In mid-summer, it comes alight with thousands of small white
trumpet-shaped flowers, with a peculiar, though not unpleasant fragrance.
It attracts bumblebees by the hundreds! A close-up of the flowers is shown
below.

The abelia is also very attractive to some
butterflies; quite often, a half-dozen or more of tiger swallowtails are
fluttering around the blossoms.

In the middle of October, 2000, the abelia
has been in bloom for at least four weeks and is still going strong.

It's July of 2003 and the abelia is in full
bloom, much to the delight of the butterflies.

Here we are in late august; the abelia is
still in bloom, perfuming the garden with its honey scent, and attracting lots
and lots of tiger swallowtail butterflies.

It's August 2004 and the Abelia is in full
bloom, scenting the garden air and attracting hordes of bumblebees and tiger
swallowtail butterflies.

One of the nice things about the abelia is
that it stays in bloom for a long time. It's now more than a month later
and it's still going strong! Everyone who visits immediately notices the
fragrance.

After giving the abelia a severe pruning in
the spring of 2006, it's grown back nicely and now, in mid-July, it's in bloom.

It's now late July and the abelia is still in full bloom and is attracting many
tiger swallowtail butterflies.

Here, one is poised upside-down with its proboscis inserted deep into the
flower.

Here's a good shot of the underside.

It's Sunday, the 20th of August. During a stroll through the garden, I
noticed something fluttering around the abelia that wasn't a tiger swallowtail.
I ran for the camera and was in time to get a few pictures of a small brown
butterfly. While it wouldn't open its wings for me, from these photos I
was able to identify it as a silver spotted skipper, a butterfly that I haven't
seen very often in my many years in New Jersey.

The abelia also attracts many other insects. The bumblebees are a laugh --
they bumble around the bush and it's funny watching them trying to get their
large heads as deep as possible into the flowers.

While shooting the photos above, I noticed a tiger swallowtail in the abelia,
but this one was different, still and lifeless. As I reached in for it, I
encountered a spider web and, indeed, the swallowtail was wrapped with webbing.
Here's the poor thing as I found it:

And here, judging by the location of the web and its occupant, as well as the
occupant's disposition, is the culprit. WARNING:
if you have arachnophobia, do NOT scroll any further down this page!

Later on in the afternoon, I was outside again, camera in hand, when two more
visitors came to the abelia. The first looks to be another type of skipper
butterfly, though which type I don't know.

The other isn't a butterfly, but rather a moth. A very peculiar moth that
thinks it's a hummingbird! It hovers in the air, it's rapidly beating
wings making a humming sound, and you could mistake it for a small hummingbird
if it wasn't for the antennae! As it happens, it's a hummingbird moth,
though since I was unable to freeze the wings in motion (even at a shutter speed
of 1/125th second), I can't really say which one it is (if I had to guess, I'd
guess the clearwing variety). Here are a few photos of this very unusual
visitor to the abelia.

Using a shutter speed of 1/350th second, I was able to freeze the motion of
the wings. Here are a few shots. Its clearly a clearwing hummingbird
moth.

Back to the tiger swallowtails ... occasionally, you see a dark-form female.
Quite often, you'd be tempted to confuse it with a black swallowtail, but it's
pretty easy to distinguish them from the underside of the wing. Here's a
dark-form female, both from the top and from the underside. This poor
butterfly has been through the wars -- wings worn and tattered -- but it's a
good example of this variety nonetheless.

The beginning of July 2007 bring the start of the Abelia's bloom.

As always, the abelia attracts beautiful winged visitors. First the
underside ...

... and then the upperside of a beautiful tiger swallowtail butterfly.

It's the July 4th weekend 2011 and the abelia is in bloom, scenting the front
porch with its honey aroma and attracting scads of bumblebees.

Here's a silver spotted skipper butterfly that was drawn to the abelia.

I was able to catch a clearwing hummingbird moth visiting the abelia as well.

Last Updated:
08 Jan 2015

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